The Red Sea Is Splitting Again

 It seems like so many of us are waiting to see a miracle on the level of “The Splitting of the Sea.”  We hear people saying,” the whole world is too crazy for me to believe. The details are just too overwhelming for me to pay enough attention to them. I ‘ll know it when I see that it’s time.” In reality, Hashem is showing us miracles all of the time. We need to see everything around us as the miraculous work of our Creator which goes so beyond our ability to intellectually and rationally comprehend. He is illuminating our lives with every event, personal and national, which takes place.

  Perhaps even more important for us to be aware of is that He is speaking to us daily, as we are hopefully speaking to him. My question is when will let Him in to the conversation? So many people have invested so much in taking Him out of the conversation and sadly enough, they have succeeded in distracting our belief process. Yet, when we honestly celebrate Hashem taking us out from Mitzraim ,  splitting of the sea in front of our eyes and choosing us to receive His Holy  Torah, we know that a relationship of that nature never ends. It may have it’s ups and downs from our limited human perspective, but that is only because we either shy away, deny our holy identity or are simply afraid to accept the magnanimous aspect of that relationship. Our father is showing us and speaking to us daily, including right now. We need to raise up to a place where are willing to go beyond simply believing in our intellect and our minds. We need to own who we are and where we can be.

    Let’s face it. Perhaps I too am living on the same low spiritual level that my ancestors in Mitzraim were living in. Perhaps I too am a slave, not to one human king, but to a world where money and material possessions have certainly taken over the top seat in our world arena. I don’t enjoy the madness and suffering that  is going on any more than others. However, when it comes to the conversations between us, shouldn’t I try to be patient in a holy manner? Patient in that way means knowing with the utmost of clarity that everything , like it or not, is coming from Hashem.I had the merit to learn this about one year ago. I needed to go to Jerusalem to repair a flat tire and there in front of me waiting to get his own tire fixed was a man in his 50’s, shaved head, dressed in a tank top and shorts. With no warning, he turns to me and the owner of the tire company and says, “You know, a little bug like this that can infect and effect an entire society on this level of magnitude, only He can do something like this( as he pointed towards the heavens). Only He has the strength to do this.” I thought I was coming to get a tire repaired, but clearly I came there only to hear that awesome lesson from my newfound brother. I am waiting patiently for the moment to finally hear teachers and leaders remind us that everything going on is Hashem’s doing. I may not be able to understand why things are happening the way they are, but if I look back in our history, it is clear that at some point everything become clear to us and will again be that way in our future.      Therefore, perhaps the most telling question facing me is, do I really want to go out? Do I want to see with honesty and listen with my entire self? If I believe, then I need to believe with a full heart and soul.  I need to think it about believing, I need to say it and talk about belief and most of all I need live it. My heart of hearts tells me that first and foremost we need a strong foundation, one of “yirat Hashem,” tremendous awe of God’s greatness. This gives us the basis from which we can strengthen and broaden our “emunah,” belief in action. Without that, all of our other conversations  are so much less consequential for our future.

     When the Slonimer Rebbe speaks of the eternal character of Pesach, we have to see ourselves, not only that we went out, but that we may be living on the same tainted spiritual level as we were in Mitzraim and that I need to get out of there right now! So the question is, “how do I see myself? Am I honestly assessing who I am and what it is that I need to fix? Do I prefer the distractions, secular and religious, that take me away from attending to the core issues of faith. It is critical for me to realize, as Rav Kook emphasized over and over again, that  I am only one part of the “clall,” the nation, as an entire inseparable entity. Inseparable from each other, inseparable from God. When I see the world through those eyes, my priorities shift and the gates open for me to see the world as a true member of B’nai Yisrael, now and forever.

     May we be blessed this 7th day of Pesach to read about the splitting of the sea, hear the experience and be aware that we too have the opportunity to cross the sea now. The only way B’nai Yisrael did so was together. As the Torah is everlasting and very much alive today, that would mean that in order for us to see and experience these great revealed miracles which we are waiting for, we too must do so together.

Shabbat Shalom V’chag Sameach,

 Yehudah